February Recipes

One of my goals for 2011 was to try one new recipe a month. Check out the January recipes here. Just like last month, I overdid it a bit...

Looking for a good side dish? Balsamic and brown sugar roasted carrots. (5 out of 5 stars)
I'm not a huge fan of steamed carrots but I do enjoy them roasted. I used regular carrots cut into chunks instead of baby carrots and didn't steam them ahead of time. I added an extra 15 minutes to the roasting time to make up for not steaming.

Fiesta Red Snapper (3 stars out of 5)
This was decent but not enough flavor for me. I skipped the cilantro because cilantro is the grossest. If I were to try the recipe again, I'd try for fresh ingredients instead of canned. I served it on whole wheat spaghetti but would be good on rice as well. Very fast to make.

Want an absolutely decadent drink for those cold nights? Nutella Hot Chocolate (5 stars out of 5)
I made this one snowy afternoon for Samara and I. AMAZING. I skipped the espresso since Samara was having some, didn't bother with the marshmallows (figured it would be sweet enough and I was right) and since I didn't have a cinnamon stick, I added a dash of ground cinnamon.

Sugar Cookies (5 stars out of 5)
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and extracts until fluffy. Combine flour and baking powder into mixture. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate 6 - 8 hours.
Preheat the oven to 375. On a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll out dough to 1/4" thickness. Cut out cookies using a 3" round cookie cutter. Transfer cookies to ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10 - 12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove cookies from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

My super handy tips: Make sure you take the dough out of the fridge well ahead of when you want to roll it out.

To go with it? The best butter icing I've tasted to date. (5 stars out of 5)

Smoky corn chowder with bacon. (2 stars out of 5)
This was just average. I'm still going to look for a decent corn chowder recipe. It wasn't awful, just fairly bland and the bacon was soggy.

Tropical pork tenderloin with mango salsa. (4 stars out of 5)
I'm adding this one to our regular meal list. I avoided the cilantro (blech) and next time would half the cloves...they overpowered the other spices. Also, next time, we'll try barbecuing it instead of baking it.

Mini chocolate cupcakes. (5 stars out of 5)
These cupcakes were insanely good. I don't even know if I can allow them in the house ever again. They were THAT good. They were the best combination of a light and fluffy cake and a moist and chewy brownie. SOOOO good paired with chocolate icing.

Pantry pumpkin soup. (2.5 stars out of 5)
Very average. Unfortunately I made a double batch so we will be eating it quite a few more times!

Dried cranberry-onion sirloin burgers. (4 stars out of 5)
2/3 lb ground sirloin (we used extra lean ground beef)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine

The original recipe didn't require an egg but we added it anyway as we were barbecuing them and didn't want them to fall apart. These were really tasty. We had them on toasted whole wheat buns with a touch of mayo and a slice of cheddar cheese. Next time I would try it with a garlic aoli and a slice of Gouda.

Another month completed and a few things added to our regular roster!